Friday, October 7, 2011

Anti-clutter

I am very anti-clutter. Though I love my things, I hate having them out of place. I love seeing open spaces and walls.
My freshman year, I had one picture on my wall in my entire dorm room -- no tack boards or posters or sayings or calendars, just one picture. And on my desk I had a collage of things I loved such as quotes, a favorite picture with each of my parents, and then a few framed pictures on the top shelf. No pens out on the desk, not even my school notebooks. They were all tucked away out of sight in their proper places. I love love loved it!
My roommates thought I was crazy!

Flash forward 5 years...I'm pregnant and that means you're tired and you have more stuff; but I cherish the moments when my home is uncluttered, everything in its space. If I ever get to spend an hour throwing away miscellaneous papers, I just LOVE the feeling! IT's so freeing! I love simplifying and getting rid of things.

Today I read a post that really made me think Unstyled LifeI especially love this part: "You’ve heard time and again that you can’t take it with you, that in the end the stuff doesn’t matter. You know that, logically, because it’s an obvious truth. But until you pull every lastthing from the recesses of an empty home and lay it out to catalog, you really have no idea.

Old tubes of mascaras. Eyeshadows. Almost empty bottles of aspirin. Expired lotions. Moth eaten sweaters. Uncomfortable sofas. Bills, paid and unpaid. Unread books. Shirts that don’t fit, are no longer in style, or you never really liked. Someone will one day run their hands over your possessions and make an assumption you won’t be there to refute.

I find it disconcerting that someone will find an empty Impressionist address book on my desk and wonder when I became a fan of Cézanne when, in truth, it was a gift from a friend I will never use. If they open my hall closet by the front door, what will they think of my piles of art and ill-fitting coats? Surely those who love me will realize I only wear the red one, even though it’s three sizes too big. And what does it say that I never took the time to alter a coat so that it fits my form in a flattering way, that I let the cuffs drag my knuckles and the waist swing wildly when I walk?

They will open my makeup drawer, pause, and then say, “I don’t remember her ever wearing green eyeshadow.”"

I love this other lady's thoughts on simplifying -- her blog has so many ideas of how to de-clutter. This post is one that made me think as we are acquiring baby stuff and thinking of moving a few times before we have a second baby.